J’accuse, director Abel Gance’s (Napoleon) indictment of war, is a tale of romance and idealism in the tradition of Jean Renoir’s La Grande Illusion and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory.

Set against the backdrop of World War I, idealistic soldier Jean Diaz (Victor Francen, A Farewell to Arms), having witnessed the horrors of war, seeks to create a revolutionary armor, in the hope that it will put an end to future bloodshed.

Viewed with skepticism by those he loves, Jean’s plans for a peaceful resolution to war will drive him to the brink of insanity allowing fellow glassworks investor Henri Chimax (Jean-Max, Satan’s Paradise) to appropriate Jean’s creation with the knowledge that war, looming on the horizon, will profit him financially.

Directed by Abel Gance, J’accuse (which used his epic 1919 silent screen version as a template) is both a stirring indictment of man’s inhumanity to man and an ode to man’s capacity for love and compassion.